‘Nobody saw this majority coming’
Minister for Health Simon Harris paid a visit to the count centre at the Shoreline Leisure Centre in his home town of Greystones on Saturday morning.
The darling of the nation following this referendum, the Minister received a warm welcome from yes campaign members at the Shoreline hall. He was to make his way into Dublin after his own constituency and, at this point, a final announcement was some hours away.
Exit polls were predicting a landslide, making for a certain lack of the usual count-centre tension even prior to the opening of any boxes.
The tallies were accurately indicating something in the region of 74.5 per cent yes and the atmosphere in the hall was cautiously celebratory, with few members of the no campaign present.
This, though, was not the same sort of triumph with abandon of the day of the marriage referendum, at least not in the Wicklow centre.
‘In many ways, as long as the eighth amendment remains in the constitution, this country is failing women in crisis pregnancies,’ said Minister Harris.
‘If you can find anybody today who said they were expecting this majority, I’d love to meet them. I don’t think anybody was expecting this margin,’ he said. ‘I’ve always said that Irish people are innately decent and compassionate and it does show that.’
There has been a ‘yes’ vote across Wicklow, with little difference between urban and rural centres.
Minister Harris said that the number of women travelling to the UK for terminations have come from small towns, large towns, big cities.
‘Rural people and urban people have thought through these issues. A lot of men, including myself, have been thinking if it was a woman in our life – my wife, my mother, my sister, my niece. If it was your daughter, how would you want that person to be looked after? A lot of men have been asking themselves that question. I’m encouraged to see that every part of Ireland and almost every age group has voted yes.
‘ The idea that there are two Irelands, an urban Ireland and a rural Ireland, has been somewhat shattered today. What there is I think is a compassionate Ireland.’
He said that the reality of crisis pregnancy and the pain that the eighth amendment has caused so many people, and the chilling effect that it has had on our doctors, has been felt right across the country and this county.
Turnout was high across Wicklow, with numbers ranging from 70 per cent to 80 per cent. Many of those did, indeed, vote no.
‘I believe everybody votes in accordance with their conscience,’ said Minister Harris.
‘I respect the fact that people have voted in a different way, as they did in the divorce and marriage equality referendums. That is democracy and I absolutely respect that right. But the people have voted, the country has spoken. In a democracy there is an obligation on those of us in the Oireachtas to respect the will of the majority.’